


Human Bonds

by Sassaphrass



Category: Black Sails, Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Billy is Calypso and Davy Jones' son, Cause I say so, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen, Weird Backstory Mystical Nonsense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-06-05 23:08:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6727063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sassaphrass/pseuds/Sassaphrass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Billy Bones was left as a foundling with his agitator parents by a strange one legged man who swore to return in ten years time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Captain of the Flying Dutchman

**Author's Note:**

> I really feel like this crossover was inevitable.

It took Billy a long time to realize that most men didn't see the sea the way he did. They loved it or feared it. Fought it or tamed it, or harnessed it. They didn't flow with it, or accept it or see it as something as dear and as known as closest kin.

 

Billy's always been set apart. It was only natural. He was a foundling boy in a family with no other children. His parents were printers and agitators and he grew up poor but educated and loved. He grew up with the sea, but not on the sea or fearing the sea.

 

If he thinks back to his childhood he thought of the sea in much the same way he thought of the sky or the largest toe on his left foot. It simply was and required no love, nor hate. It didn't need to be harnessed or tamed (and to do either would have been impossible).

 

When he was a child of about 10 a man came to see him. He was tall and strange and walked out of the fog on one leg. His voice was rough and northern. He smiled at Billy where he stood by the shop door and took his hand and spoke of how he was growing to be a fine lad.

 

The next morning when he described the strange apparition to his parents, they said it sounded like the man who'd left Billy with them when he was a tiny squawling infant. He'd said he'd visit every ten years but they'd never expected him to.

 

Billy doesn't tell him that the man had said he was called Davy Jones.

 

When he was taken to sea by the press-gang it wasn't the sea he feared it was the men upon it, and that has held true to the rest of his life.

 

He also, it turns out, has a knack for seeing through things that flummox others. Not that he's clever, just that he's direct and that he can always spot the spin, the lie.

 

It doesn't make his life easier, exactly, because he doesn't think anything could make his life in the Navy anything but hell.

 

On the day that he thinks is his twentieth birthday he wonders whether his father came back to the printshop only to find him long gone.

 

It's not long after that Flint and the crew come and they let him kill that bastard captain. They offer to try and get him home, well, _Gates_ does, and Billy loves him for it, but the idea of leaving the sea seems strange somehow. So he stays, Gates takes him under his wing, and that's the end of it.

 

Until a few months later when Billy's sitting in the surf one night and Davy Jones walks out of a breaking wave.

 

Billy looks up at him. He looks less human than last time. It looks a bit like his beard is sprouting tentacles. This should be surprising, but much like the sea and his last visit, it seems natural.

 

Billy raises a hand in greeting.

 

Davy Jones watches him from the surf. “Are you alright lad?” he asks.

 

Billy shrugs. He talks more now that he's with the crew of the Walrus but, he's not yet broken the habit of silence that he gained in the navy.

 

Davy Jones takes a step forward. “I'm sorry. I looked for ye once I found out.”

 

Billy shrugs again. He won't say it's alright, or that he accepts the apology, because what does Davy Jones have to be sorry for? And what happened will never ever be alright.

 

Instead he steps up and walks out into the surf to stand beside the dread of the sea.

 

He meets his gaze. “You gave me to my parents.” he states.

 

“Yes.”

 

“Are you my father?”

 

“Yes.”

 

Billy takes a moment to take in the budding tentacles of the man's beard and the deformity of his arm. “Who was my mother?” he asks.

 

Davy Jones rages and sputters and dissembles, but Billy just cocks his head and can see through it somehow. “The Goddess of the sea?” he clarifies once it seems Jones has stumbled into silence.

 

“Calypso.” Davy Jones hisses.

 

Billy nods. It doesn't make sense, but.

 

But.

 

Like the feel of the sea and the pirate walking out of the mist it seems too real to be remarkable.

 

“Alright then.” he goes to walk ashore but Jones stays rooted. Billy frowns and turns to face him.

 

“One more question!” he calls over the roar of the surf.

 

Jones pauses.

 

“Why every 10 years?” Billy shouts.

 

Jones shrugs. “It was a bargain! Immortality but only one day ashore every 10 years.”

 

Billy nods and walks away. That's a terrible bargain, and you'd have to be a prize fool to take it, but he won't say that to his apparently immortal apparently father.

 

Billy heads up the beach back to the lights of the town, and the familiar faces of his crew. He doesn't look back, and he never sees Davy Jones again.

 


	2. The Goddess of the Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy meets his mother.

The sea is a cruel mistress but a kinder mother. At least in Billy's experience.

 

He's already boatswain of the the Walrus when he lays eyes on Calypso. There were rumour of a maelstrom in the Pacific, and the last of the old guard of the pirate lords making some sort of valiant (or knowing pirates, less than valiant) last stand.

 

Billy hears the stories because he makes a point of hearing all the stories. Most of the pirates of Nassau don't put any store by the tales, seeing as they're a different more desperate breed than the ones that sail from Tortuga in search of legends.

 

But, Billy's familiar with legends, so he makes careful note of the story and files it away. Then after thinking for a moment he walks down to the beach, between the tents and the shanties and sits watching the surf curl up against the sand.

 

Gates comes to find him, because for all the crew relies on him, Gates is the only one who would ever bother to look.

 

He sits down next to him with a groan and a creak, and a grumble about how he's not as young as he once was.

 

Billy smiles a little and turns to look.

 

Gates is looking at him thoughtfully.

 

“Ya alright, Billy?” he asks softly.

 

Billy nods.

 

“Only,” Gates continues. “ Ye don't come down 'ere too often.”

 

Billy shrugs. “Been at sea too long.” he supplies. “The town seemed too crowded today, besides,” and he shoots the quartermaster a wicked grin. “I'm waiting for someone.”

 

Gate seems relieved, as Billy knew he would be. The man tended to fuss over him a little. Worried about his future and the way that as much as he can be called friends with any of the crew, it could also be said he is friends with none of them.

 

“Alrigh'” Gates says with a nod. “I'll be off then less I frighten this lassie away.”

 

Billy smiles as Gates heaves himself to his feet and wanders off.

 

And he waits until a low accented voice whispers in his ear.

 

“Ah! My sweet, how big you've grown.”

 

Billy turns and sees a woman standing a few feet away with seaweed in her hair.

 

He stands and she smiles.

 

“Very big indeed.” she remarks as he towers over her. 

 

“Calypso?” he asks. 

 

She nods. “Da very same.”

 

She walks up to him and looks him in the face.

 

“Ye have de sea in yer eyes, don't ya?”

 

He shrugs. “Some might say that. Other's say it's the sky.”

 

Calypso grins and shakes her head. “It's de calm sea. And you carry it witin you. Lucky boy. Not like me, not like yer fader, just like yerself.”

 

She smiles and looks up at him proudly. “Ders not a man alive could take it from ye.” She pats his cheek. “A mother couldn't be more proud. Don't forsake me, and de sea will see you through.”

 

Billy nods. “As if I ever could. I've heard rumours...Davy Jones is dead, isn't he?”

 

She nods. “Released I was from de torment he damned me to, and him as well. Another captain's de Dutchman in his place now.”

 

Billy nods and Calypso backs away.

 

“Remember my son,” she calls to him. “Calm seas can be dangerous too.”

 

Billy smiles. “Oh I know that very well.”

 

He didn't need to be told that after a lifetime spend on or near the sea, but he's happy to hear it all the same.

 

His mother turns back and leans up to whisper in his ear. “If you 'ave need of me, my son. I'll come for you.”

 

Billy smiles at her skeptically. “I don't think I'll need your help, but thanks all the same.”

 

She grins as she backs away. “So you say.”

 

And then she's gone as though she'd never been there at all.

 

Billy shakes his head and smiles to himself.

 

Flint may be a tempest you must weather and John a wild wind you can ride if you're brave enough, but Billy?

 

Billy is the glassy sea without a puff of wind- he is quiet and patient and steady as any man afloat, but when the day of reckoning comes there will be no escape.

 

When you're caught in the doldrums after all, the only thing you can do is endure and pray it breaks before you do.

 

**Author's Note:**

> 'Kay so, I know that the obvious child of the sea goddess choice here is Flint due to his possible ability to create convenient weather. However Billy should be dead like five different times in sea related incidents and is not. Also his magical bullshit immunity is fun. 
> 
> Plus I like Billy better. So, there's that.


End file.
